Wednesday Sector Leaders: Materials, Energy

Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Wednesday, shares of Materials companies are outperforming other sectors, up 1.1%. Within the sector, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX) and CONSOL Energy Inc (NYSE: CNX) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 15.0% and 10.9%, respectively. Among the high volume ETFs, one ETF closely following materials stocks is the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (AMEX: XLB), which is up 0.3% on the day, and down 12.44% year-to-date. Fre...